


drivers license

by Buki_writes



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alyssa and Lani are good friends, And Drista is trying her best XD, Angst, Anxiety, Break Up, Cheating, Driving, Established Relationship, F/M, Heavy Angst, Inspired by Music, Inspired by Olivia Rodrigo’s song, Niki | Nihachu-centric, Stress Relief, its literally all angst, we hate ourselves and happiness here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28819662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buki_writes/pseuds/Buki_writes
Summary: Niki drives when she’s stressed; it’s her quirk, her tick, something that makes her just a little unique. And right now, she’s just really fucking stressed.
Relationships: Niki | Nihachu & Alyssa | ItsAlyssa, Niki | Nihachu & Clay | Dream's Sister Drista, Niki | Nihachu & Lani, Niki | Nihachu & Original Female Character(s), Niki | Nihachu/Wilbur Soot
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	drivers license

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, love! Welcome to my brand new story!!
> 
> I got the idea for this story from [this](https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJTDPH7w/) TikTok audio, and spent the next two hours writing this. Then I went back and edited it for the final product! So I hope you enjoy and don’t hate me too much at the end ;)
> 
> Also, before I forget!! There is a slight tw for a panic/anxiety attack! It’s not really in depth I don’t think, but it’s alluded to.
> 
> (PS- I don’t personally ship these two, I just thought the idea worked well with them both being musicians and ran with it. I don’t really care if you talk about this fic, so long as you give credit, but I _do not_ allow copying and reposting.)

Niki drives when she’s stressed; it’s her quirk, her tick, something that makes her just a little unique. And right now, she’s just really fucking stressed.

There has always been something about open roads, silent drives, and bright headlights that soothed Niki. Ever since she was small she would always feel calmest when in the car; her parents told her stories about how, when they couldn’t get her to calm down or sleep as a baby, a short car ride would always do the trick. And so now it makes perfect sense for Niki to be behind the wheel after the crushing weeks prior.

With finding her long-time boyfriend—someone she had been dating for a little over three years—cheating on her with not one, but two of her best friends and the resulting fights afterwards, just about anyone would turn to their trusted stress-reliever.

It started out simple, with Niki being concerned for her relationship after having to reschedule one of their dates due to her job. She had already felt that there was growing tension between the two, and the missed time together only added to it. So she was able to convince her coworker, Ranboo, to cover the last hour of her shift so she could surprise her boyfriend.

When she arrived, there was another car in the driveway. One she knew, one her friend Michelle drove. So she thought nothing of it, knowing that Michelle and her boyfriend were close friends. It was when she entered the house and found them making out on the living room couch that made Niki wish she would’ve just stayed at work where she was supposed to be.

“Wilbur!” Niki had exploded, marching into the living room and watching the two scramble apart like minnows in a lake, scared by something above the surface. “I cannot believe you!”

“Niki, what are you doing here? You- you were supposed to be at work!” Wilbur choked out, eyes wide and wild as he looked at her. Niki was absolutely livid, in the moment.

“How could you? I trusted you!” She boomed, voice louder than she could ever remember it being. She then spun around and directed her fury at her former friend. “Both of you!”

“Niki, I-” Michelle started, holding up her hands in surrender.

“No! I don’t want to hear a word from you yet! I want _my boyfriend_ to explain what the fuck is going on here!”

“Niki, please calm down-” Wilbur started before Niki whipped around and watched him shrink into himself slightly under her gaze.

“You don’t get to tell me to calm down, fucker. I came here to make up for having to cancel our plans _as a surprise_. And I walk in to find you _sucking face_ with this… this _bitch_!” Niki took a step forward, hands moving wildly as she spoke.

“Please let me explain-” He tries again, but Niki doesn’t let him get that far.

“Oh you’d better fucking explain." Niki’s voice is a low growl and she can feel the hot fury coursing through her veins.

“You were never meant to find out, Niki. And I-”

“And that makes it fucking _okay?_ Me not finding out makes it _okay_ to make out with someone I thought was my fucking _friend_?”

“No, it doesn’t, but I just-”

“Then why would you do it? Why would you make out with my friend while I was gone?”

Suddenly, Wilbur stood up, taller than Niki, and boomed, “Because you were never around to love, so I found someone else!”

Niki took a step back, a shocked stumble, as the words echoed loudly in her head.

_‘You were never around to love, so I found someone else’_

_‘You were never around to love’_

_‘I found someone else’_

She didn’t want to— _couldn’t_ —believe a word he said. She had tried _so hard_ in this relationship. She gave _everything she was_ to the person in front of her. And he’s saying that _she_ was the one who gave under the pressure?

“What did you say?” Niki asked, voice suddenly small and far away. Everything she had been feeling drained out of her like someone pulled the drain cover in a bathtub.

“You were always picking up extra shifts, always hanging out with friends, always cancelling things for family. And so when you left me, I found someone who wouldn’t,” Wilbur continues, whether ignoring or missing Niki’s sudden mood change.

_‘When you left me, I found someone who wouldn’t’_

_‘When you left me-’_

_‘-I found someone who wouldn’t’_

“No, I- I didn’t leave you! I would never! I _loved_ you!” She couldn’t breath with collapsed lungs, couldn’t see with the way her vision clouded over and shook, couldn’t stand with the way her body trembled.

“I never meant for this to happen, but you pushed me away! You pushed so far that I didn’t come back. And it started with Marcy at that stupid party-” Wilbur suddenly cuts himself off, but the damage has already been inflicted.

_’You pushed me away’_

_‘You pushed so far that I didn’t come back’_

“Marcy?” Niki squeaks from where she sunk to the floor. Marcy had been her closest friend since elementary school. She wouldn’t- Marcy went behind her back with her boyfriend? Niki can hardly make anything out through the blanket of shock and disbelief settling over her mind. Wilbur cheated on her with _Marcy_?

“When you left, Marcy came to me. And then Michelle did. They cared more than you ever seemed to. And now- now you know. So you can leave. And maybe this time you won’t pretend to come back,” Wilbur declared, voice demanding and sharper than a diamond sword. He sliced right through Niki.

_’They cared more than you ever seemed to’_

_‘You can leave’_

_‘Maybe this time you won’t pretend to come back’_

“It’s time for you to go.” He sliced her open and left her to bleed out—right in the middle of his living room floor.

~

Niki had not been okay for the next week. She still wasn’t okay, even after it had passed.

She had spent all the time that wasn’t school or work holed up in her room, sobbing into her pillows. Her neighbor, Lani, and the last of her friends, Alyssa, had come over multiple times to try and calm her down. Neither had been able to help for long.

Drista, Lani’s best friend, even came over bearing gifts and apologies. Niki had never felt so low in her life, no matter how much ice cream she ate, sad music she listened to, or rom-coms she binged after midnight. Wilbur’s words just wouldn’t leave her alone, they plagued her every waking hour.

_‘You were never around to love, so I found someone else’_

_‘You were never around to love’_

_‘I found someone else’_

She couldn’t escape them, no matter what she did.

_‘When you left me, I found someone who wouldn’t’_

_‘When you left me-’_

_‘-I found someone who wouldn’t’_

She tried—she tried _so hard_ —to make things work, even with her busy schedule and life. So why was _she_ the one that suffered so much?

_’You pushed me away’_

_‘You pushed so far that I didn’t come back’_

What had she ever done to deserve this? What had gone _so wrong_ that the world felt the need to punish her in this way?

_’They cared more than you ever seemed to’_

_‘You can leave’_

_‘Maybe this time you won’t pretend to come back’_

She knew they weren’t perfect, but how could he be so okay after she’s gone?

She didn’t understand a bit.

~

“Niki, honey, you need to release it all—and you have been—but you also need to let it go. It’s a hard truth that’s bitter to swallow, but it’s one you have to brave anyway,” Alyssa says, rubbing gentle circles onto Niki’s back as she weeps into her pillow.

“But it’s just so- it’s just so hard!” Niki’s muffled and broken voice calls back between sobs. Niki could feel Alyssa wince in the way she paused before continuing to rub her back.

“I know you really, _really_ don’t want to hear this, but Wilbur, Marcy, and Michelle are assholes. If they can walk away so easily they were never really there in the first place,” Lani consoles on her other side, pulling out a tissue from the box when Niki sits up.

“And I _know that_ , I just can’t get myself to _believe it_ ,” Niki says, ending with a sob. Lani quickly pulled her in and let Niki soak her shirt.

“Sorry if this is harsh, but what makes them so good anyway? They betrayed you and left you, so why are you still so upset?” Drista asks. Niki knew she didn’t mean any harm by it, she really did, but that didn’t stop the hurt she felt from the girl’s words.

“Because I never expected them to. I loved them all _so much_ , and they just-” Niki cut herself off, voice breaking.

“Why did they do this to me?”

She feels so pathetic, wasting so much time and obsessing about something she can never change. But the question haunts her—she can feel it’s ghostly fingers clawing at her skin and it’s whispering breath cold on the back of her neck, sending shivers running down her back. She can’t escape it, can’t shake it even for a moment.

“Sometimes… people do things we cannot understand. And that just means that we are not like them—you cannot understand because you are not one to hurt others. That is just the way you are,” Lani explains with a solemn voice.

“And we wouldn’t change a thing about you for the world,” Alyssa adds, pulling Niki and Lani into a hug. It’s tight and warm and _nice_. And for a brief second, Niki can breathe.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll kill them for you if I ever meet them,” Drista comments, an awkward but kind tone in her voice. The moment prior is shattered in Niki’s scarred hands, but Niki knows she means it and smiles, if just for a moment.

“Thank you.”

~

It’s two in the morning when she leaves her house, leaving the three girls to sleep in her bed. They mean the world to her—even Drista who she barely knew but is still around to help—but she needed some time to think. She needed time to herself, some space where she was free from everyone and everything. So she grabbed her keys and went for a drive, something she’s neglected to do in favor of burrowing into her bed.

The beginning was quiet, as it usually is.

She left her house, careful to keep her headlights off as she backed out of her driveway, and left the radio off as she drove with no destination. She turned a corner, then another, and one more after that, before she found herself on the empty backroads just outside the suburbs that stretch farther than Niki has ever been able to reach.

With nothing around her but tall cornfields and the stars above, Niki rolls down the window. The night air is cool on her face as it sweeps through her hair and dances between the fingers of her outstretched hand. She can’t catch the wind—can’t even hold it for a moment. She retracts her hand again.

With the wind swirling around her in the car, Niki takes a long, brutal breath in before exhaling it all out. The road has no curves, no unexpected turns, so Niki lets her eyes fall closed for a moment. Another exhale and something falls off her shoulders, left in the dust on the road behind her.

Opening her eyes, she feels lighter. She feels lighter than she did half an hour ago. She feels lighter than she did a _week_ ago. And she wonders why she didn’t drive before. What took her so long to return to the place she felt best at?

The place she enjoyed more than the arms of someone who promised they loved her. Then the words they sung a million times over in a song of their own making. The place she enjoyed more than her entire relationship.

Niki’s heart soars, flying high in the sky. It flies higher than planes—than rockets bound for space. And Niki wishes her body could follow it’s lead. But she’s happy in the worn seat she sits in and she presses the pedal under her foot further.

Whistling fills her ears and joy fills her body. Her hair is whipping around wildly, fingers gripping the steering wheel like a lifeline, and spirit so light she wonders if it’ll soar out the open window and into the dark night beyond. Her car is speeding down an old road she knows better than her best friend and Niki beams.

A laugh rings out. It’s loud, and bright, and real. It’s so _real_. Everything around her feels so _real_ that she wonders if she’s been living in a nightmare rather than down on Earth. A nightmare that’s lost its grip on her. A nightmare that she’s finally woken from. Niki laughs harder. She lets herself laugh louder than she can remember ever laughing before.

Niki quickly grabs her phone and turns on it’s Bluetooth, connecting to her car stereo and pressing play on the first playlist that comes up. She cranks the volume up until she can feel the vibrations in her bones. Then she opens her mouth and sings along.

She sings her throat raw, and then some, singing along as she drives for miles. She takes a turn, and then another, looping back towards home even though she wants this moment to last forever. She doesn’t let it dampen her mood, promises herself that she won’t let another thing bring her down for as long as she may live.

It’s three in the morning—she’s been here for a single hour—and she’s belting out the lyrics, loudly and definitely off-key, to music as she races down the street without a care. But she’s free, so incredibly _free_ that she can’t help the smile that radiates from her or the way her heart has swelled so large in her chest that she can feel it pressing against her ribs. She doesn’t stop, doesn’t even _think_ about limiting anything but her speed as she enters the suburbs once more.

And yet, it crashes. The high cloud she had been laying on dissolves and she’s sent plummeting back to the nightmare she thought she escaped.

She slows the car immediately, nearing a stop as her face falls and that weight she ditched crushes her again. She reads the street sign before her over and over and over again, the one she avoided for so long, the one she tried _so hard_ to pretend it never existed at all.

But there it looms, in all of it’s miserable glory, for the world to see—for her to see. The street sign that leads to the house she left a week ago with tears running down her face and making a mess of her makeup. Tears that clouded her vision and felt like liquid acid on her skin.

Niki breaks her promise—she doesn’t make it home without sobbing the same way she remembers a week ago, driving away from the same place she is now.

It was never meant to be.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I did! It was super cool to write and I’ve been listening to ‘drivers license’ on repeat because of it XD
> 
> Please consider leaving a comment, I love interacting with y’all! And please drink some water and love yourself!! <3


End file.
